


The Loneliest Little Soldier

by Kat_C_Lyon



Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: Daredevil (TV) Spoilers, F/M, Gen, Missing Scene, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 17:10:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6292822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat_C_Lyon/pseuds/Kat_C_Lyon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“You insist on doing this alone,” she says, “when I’m trying to tell you you don’t have to. Not anymore.”</i>
  <br/>
  <i>Matt shakes his head. “You. Know. What happens when I drag in new people.”</i>
  <br/>
  <i>She gestures up and down his torso. “I also know what happens when you don’t.”</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> <br/>Claire had something else she should have said to Matt. So I gave them about two more minutes to talk before his phone rang.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Loneliest Little Soldier

**Author's Note:**

> Just so I'm covered, this work includes **Spoilers for Daredevil Season 2** Up to and including episode 11.
> 
> I actually had this scene mostly written before S2 came out, because I knew they were going to pull this deflecting bullshit, even though it's pretty life-and-death information at this point. I'm very impatient for these threads to come together, I can't even tell you.
> 
> (It's also a tiny bit shippy.)

“Matt, admit. You’re in over your head. There’s no shame in that.” But of course, there is, for him. He turns his head like she just slapped him. Probably worse than if she had. “Okay,” she folds her arms and squares up to him. “Here it is. Here is my Hail Mary throw. Ready?”  
  
He just shakes his head and says, “Claire…”  
  
No, he’s not getting out of this. “I know people who can help you.”  
  
“Claire, don’t.”  
  
Oh, she will. “You can shove me away, you can shove your friends away…”  
  
Matt’s eyebrows go up. “Are those two different categories?”  
  
Claire presses on, through the bullshit. Makes her voice less desperate than she’s feeling, an early-acquired skill, for a nurse. It also doesn’t work on Matt Murdock, but what does? “You insist on doing this alone,” she says, “when I’m trying to tell you you don’t have to. Not anymore.”  
  
Matt shakes his head. “You. Know. What happens when I drag in new people.”  
  
She gestures up and down his torso. “I also know what happens when you don’t.” What kind of scars are hiding under there now? Why doesn’t he ever call? It’s not like he ever tried and she was busy. He’s never left a text or a voicemail, either. But that's not the issue right now. “These aren’t people who would be threatened by a Louisville slugger. Or a ninja with a butcher’s knife, by the way.”  
  
“What people?” Matt grinds his teeth. “Other _heroes_?”  
  
Claire waves a hand. “Sure.”  
  
Matt’s laughter is getting increasingly unhinged. Claire’s heart aches, remembering clear-eyed, brilliant smiles, over stupid jokes about dumpster diving. There’s venom in his voice, now, when he speaks. “Those people have made it _very_ clear that they have bigger problems than mine, and even if they didn’t, I can’t be that.”  
  
Claire shakes her head. “Not _them_. You think I know Captain friggin’ America? Jesus. I’m talking about two regular people, like you, who have gifts and want to use them.”  
  
“ _Gifts._ ” He puts the same sneer on it as he did the word "heroes".  
  
Claire already has her arms overflowing with Matt Murdock’s Issues, and she cannot catch one more of them. “Freak shows like you. Better?”  
  
Another crazy laugh. “Oh, yeah.”  
  
“Matt,” she says it quietly, calmly, “I care about you, and I am so scared,” she carefully emphasizes, “ _for you_.” He shakes his head like there’s a fly in his ear. “I know you don’t want to hear that, too bad.” But it’s more than he doesn’t want to hear it. He’s deflecting it, bouncing it off. He _can’t_ hear it. It’s like he’s now selectively deaf, too.  
  
She has one more, though, she thought of after their conversation on the roof. Is anything stronger than a Hail Mary? Matt would know, but that’s straying from the point of this chat. She’s throwing a full rosary at him, now, can that be a thing? She takes a deep breath. “You listened to me once before, and it made you a better fighter.” There it is. He stops, softens just a little. It’s apparently the one thing he can still allow himself to care about. Yes, the armour was a good idea. Too good an idea, maybe, in hindsight, but Matt is suddenly listening. She jumps on the opening, as carefully as she can. “Right?” She moves in close to him again. “Listen to me now.”  
  
Matt actually, miraculously, pauses. Breathes. “How do you know these people?”  
  
Claire knows she has to be so careful right now. “I helped them out, once.”  
  
“You mean,” Matt says quietly, “you saved their lives?”  
  
Claire shrugs. “It’s what I do.” And then Matt actually, sanely, smiles. Holy shit, she still loves this ridiculous motherfucker.  
  
It’s short lived. One skipped heartbeat later, he’s all business again. “Names?”  
  
“Jessica Jones.”  
  
“I’ve heard that name somewhere.”  
  
“She’s a PI,” Claire says, “lives in your neighbourhood. She’s strong. I don’t know the full extent of it, I saw her pick up and carry a, probably three-hundred pound, unconscious man, like he was a baby. Taped up her own ribs, apparently that was all she needed after getting hit by an actual truck. She also left a pretty nasty bruise on my arm.” Matt’s head snaps to attention at that. Oh, seriously? A bruise? And Claire isn’t allowed to worry about his damn _life_? Like he can protect one little person anymore. If he hadn’t been right the fuck on her heels… Claire is still so occupied with Luisa, she hasn’t even begun processing herself. Not beyond physically. She holds up her worse-than-bruised arms. “Unclench your jaw, there, multiple lacerations.”  
  
He frowns, breathes again. “Who's the other?”  
  
“The three-hundred pound man himself,” Claire says. “Luke something, I don’t think I caught a last name. And I don’t know what he does, but he broke three needles and a diamond-tipped surgical drill with his skin.” No swords through the heart for that guy, which is, honestly, a pretty attractive quality right now. Again, Matt looks, at the very least, receptive. “These are good people,” Claire says, “and they give a shit.”  
  
“You know that, but you don’t know his name?”  
  
“Didn’t know yours, Mike,” she whispers. Matt frowns. It’s almost a wince, like that memory is as painfully distant for him as it is for her. “But I knew the same thing about you, then.” He gives a rueful laugh, shaking his head.  
  
And then his frown changes from pained to nonplussed. “You have a diamond-tipped surgical drill?”  
  
“Why?” she says, “planning on needing one?” And then Matt laughs. Honestly laughs, and Claire laughs too, and for a second, they’re just friends, sharing an inside joke, and the world doesn’t feel so fucking hopeless. “Drill wasn’t mine.”  
  
“How’d you save his life?” It’s weird for her not to see his eyes, his open, expressive eyes, no wonder he hides them from the world, but she can hear the softness in his voice and she can guess how he’s looking at her. She can handle it. Just.  
  
It’s a good question. Claire is still not completely sure. An eidetic memory for anatomical systems, and a willingness to think outside the box? If she was exaggerating on a resume, which, incidentally, she might be doing again soon? “I figured it out,” was the best answer she could give him. “No one else was doing anything.”  
  
Matt steps towards her, puts his hands on her shoulders, pulls them in to her neck. Feels her pulse, or her skin, and it’s too intimate, but so was the way she pushed his hood back, stroked his face, before. That wasn’t just medical. So now they’re even. “If you’re ever wondering,” his voice is so low, so soft, “you are the reason I don’t like to call myself a hero.”  
  
That is so fucking unfair. She changes IVs and bandages cuts and fails to save zombie teenagers and is very, _very_ occasionally called on for emergency vigilante surgery. He… dives out twelfth storey windows. Suddenly she feels the wind getting knocked out of her again, holy _fucking_ shit.  
  
She puts her hands on top of his. Squeezes. He squeezes back. She can breathe again. “Matt.” It’s a plea at this point.  
  
Matt strokes a thumb over her collarbone. “I’ll think about it.”  
  
“Will you?”  
  
And right then, before he can confirm, before she can give him any contact information, his phone rings. Mister No-More-Friends just shoves her away. Literally. Like, she supposes, she told him to. He picks up the phone. “I gotta go. It’s important.” It couldn’t possibly be anything else. “I really am sorry.” Yeah, he always is.  
  
“So am I,” Claire says. And he’s out the door.  
  
Claire still doesn’t have that number.


End file.
